


Death Be Not Proud

by terrible_titles



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, But seriously take care of yourself and heed the warnings, Canon-Typical Worms (The Magnus Archives), Each "thing" is a different AU where canon has been slightly manipulated to give Martin a hard time, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Just some slightly less bad ones, M/M, Sometimes you just need to write a big old pile of angst and feelings, Suicide, THERE ARE NO HAPPY ENDINGS HERE, Unhappy Ending, Violence, and I'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:32:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29348970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terrible_titles/pseuds/terrible_titles
Summary: It is depressingly easy for Martin Blackwood to disappear, and for no one to notice.Five ways Martin dies, and one way he doesn't.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	Death Be Not Proud

**An Afterthought**

In all the universes, there are a myriad of ways the Entities silently prey on victims, slide them neatly through the reality of everyday lives into nightmare realms where the Entities can feast on their victims’ fears until they are sated (they are never really sated). One of the easier ways is to target those who will not be missed. 

It is depressingly easy for Martin Blackwood to disappear, and for no one to notice. 

Jonathan Sims is the new Head Archivist at the Magnus Institute, and Martin Blackwood should in no way be an assistant here. His resume is a lie. His has no investigative experience. And now he has to stay one step ahead of his boss, whose IQ is probably twice his own. 

That’s why he decides to investigate Carlos Vittery’s flat further. Compared to Sasha and Tim, Martin comes up short. He’s heard Jon refer to him as “incompetent,” and he knows he desperately needs to make more substantial contributions to the team or Jon will become suspicious. Contributions _other_ than bringing everyone a cup of tea each morning. 

It’s the worst experience of his life (and he’s had a lot of bad experiences), and it follows him home. He finds it quite funny, in a tired way, that his efforts to be a better member of the team end in him taking a nearly two-week sick leave from the Institute so he can be a prisoner in his own home, living off of tinned meats and listening to what he can only assume is a giant worm creature’s endless, repetitive knocking at his door. 

He might have found it even funnier when, on the fourteenth day, the silence lures him into opening the locks, and it turns out Jane Prentiss hasn’t had her fill of fun after all. 

Elias is the one who claims Martin’s body once it begins to smell and the neighbors complain. He studies the horror in Martin’s wide and rotting face, watches the uncanny way the worms writhe above and under the decaying, pock-marked skin, and moves his shoe to crush one that strays too far from the body. There will be a mess to clean up. He’ll probably have to burn down the entire building. 

Elias summons Jon to his office later that afternoon. “It appears that Mr. Blackwood has found employment elsewhere,” he says. “You may hire another assistant, if you’d like.” 

Jon wrinkles his nose. “Well, I should have liked to hear it from _him_ , but I suppose appropriate workplace etiquette was too much to ask for from Martin.”

The next morning, however, Jon is studying the latest field notes from Sasha’s efforts when he absently reaches for a tea mug that isn’t there. 

**A Memory**

“So what,” Tim says, “the Martin we remember isn’t even the real Martin?”

Jon shakes his head. “If I handed you a picture of the real Martin, you wouldn’t even recognize him. Martin died a year ago, and that… thing manipulated our memories and took over his life. There are only a few things it can’t influence, like the recorder. That’s how I found out—the missing tape from the Prentiss attack. The… real Martin. It still holds his voice.”

“That’s just so sad, though,” Sasha says. “To die is bad enough, but to be erased, to be wiped from everyone’s memories, and replaced so easily?” She trails off, gold-brown eyes cast down to the mug of tea in her hands. 

Replaced with something else, some monster, for no reason other than that’s what monsters _do_. They take, they hurt, they ruin. His own mother wouldn’t recognize the real Martin now.

The three of them are gathered around the small lunch table in the break room, just after Jon returns and Elias confesses to Leitner’s murder. They are holding tea, like this is normal, like Jon hasn’t just been in hiding for weeks, like it’s fine that they’re discussing the fact that their friend’s been dead for a year and they never knew. 

Suddenly, Tim’s fist slams into the table, jostling their mugs. Some of the cooling black tea in Jon’s runs down his hand. 

“This is ridiculous!” Tim cries, his face reddening. “How can this be happening? How can we be stuck in a job we can’t quit, a job that has a million creative and horrifying ways to kill us? I don’t want to end up like Martin, and I definitely don’t want to end up like _you_ , Jon!” 

Sasha puts a hand on Tim’s shoulder and Tim’s breath is coming fast and deep. Jon says nothing. There really isn’t a good reply to that, anyway. 

“Come on, Tim,” Sasha says. “Let’s get you home.” 

Jon looks away like it’s a private moment as Sasha gathers Tim’s things and ushers him through the door. There, she looks back to Jon. 

“You’ll be all right?” she asks. 

Jon gazes at her for a moment, then nods.

Sasha purses her lips and nods back. 

After they’re gone, Jon returns to the comfort of his own office. He slumps into the chair with a deep sigh. It’s getting dark outside, so he switches on the lamp. The tape recorder, the one that contains the real Martin, sits in front of him. He considers it for a moment, then presses play. 

_I like spiders,_ Martin says through the tape. Jon tries to think, tries to remember that voice, but it’s just not there. _I actually think they’re sort of cute._

What kind of man was Martin? What kind of man would… 

Fast forward. 

_Thank you. To be honest, I didn’t expect you to take me seriously._

Why didn’t he think Jon would take him seriously? 

Fast forward. 

_I’m sorry, Jon. I’m so sorry I left—_

Why? Why are Martin’s last words an apology for him? Martin’s breath is soft and shaky, tinged with regret and fear. Jon reaches out to the plastic casing of the recorder, idly strokes a thumb over the only remnants of the real Martin that survive now. He is responsible for his team, and he has failed this one in the worst way imaginable. Yet Martin still apologizes in an unrecognizable voice. Still likes spiders in that rambling tone pitched too high. Still disbelieves Jon would offer him any kindness, would listen to his story. Nothing of this Martin connects to the one Jon knows—stoic, effective, competent. It’s frustrating, to say the least, and also, Jon might admit if he were a better man, a little heart-breaking. 

“Who were you, Martin?” he murmurs. 

It is dark outside. The light from the lamp puts the scars on Jon’s hand in stark relief as he caresses the archaic equipment, a wordless futile comfort to a man the universe forgot. He reaches again for the clunky controls. Rewind.

_I like spiders. I actually think—_

Fast forward. 

_… to take me seriously…_

Fast forward. 

_I’m sorry, Jon. I’m so sorry—_

Rewind. 

_I’m sorry, Jon. I’m so—_

Rewind. 

_I’m sorry, Jon. I’m—_

**A Victim**

The police have left with Elias in cuffs, but Elias’ voice is still in Martin’s head. _“You want to know what she sees when she looks at you?”_

Martin is shaking and doesn’t know if he’ll ever stop. Tim and Daisy are dead; Basira looks like a ghost. Melanie is on the prowl for something to kill. Jon’s in a coma. And the hypnotic sound of Elias, violating his memories, pulling apart everything awful about himself he could never voice, still echoes like a ringing nerve in his ear. 

_“Your mother simply hates you. You just don’t know why.”_

Martin isn’t sure of a lot of things, but at least Elias has cleared that one up for him. He’d spent so long taking care of her, trying not to take her clipped answers to heart, assuring himself she was angry at herself, only taking it out on him because she felt helpless to do anything else. It’s nice to know, at last, that his anxieties were not unfounded. That she did hate him, after all. At least she finally got away from him. At least he can’t force her to see him at her care facility. 

And if his mother hated him, well, it stands to reason that his whole overbearing caretaking thing is simply a nuisance, and that Jon—

There was a night, long ago, before Prentiss and her worms, before Sasha became Not-Sasha, when Tim bounded into the break room and announced that everyone was going to the pub. He’d learned it was Jon’s birthday and he couldn’t think of a better way to make Jon miserable than by celebrating it.

Jon refused to blow out the candles on his store-bought sheet cake and grumpily nursed his pint when they were all shocked to hear he was actually turning 29 and not, say, 70. Sasha was singing some horrible new pop song off-key, and Tim slung his arm around Martin and joined in. The bartender looked nearly as grumpy as Jon did. Martin felt at home, suddenly. At peace. It was warm, dim; there was a fire in the corner. Other groups were laughing in their booths, doing shots, digging into colorless piles of food. He was a part of this group, though: this one, with Jon, Sasha, Tim, and a sheet cake. 

It’s with a start Martin realizes there are tears standing in his eyes, and he blinks them away. There is no Sasha now, no Tim. Jon might never wake up, and even if he does, it’s not likely Martin will be anyone he wants to see. 

Martin climbs the stairs to the roof, pulls the creaky access door open again the wind. Old buildings of decaying brick surround them here, and tired, mostly empty streets of asphalt turning corners until they disappear into the foggy day. The concrete beneath his feet gives way until he’s at the edge looking down into an alleyway, empty of anything but a rusty green dumpster. 

_Such loyalty to someone who really treats you rather badly._

Martin’s never had a family, just loss. He’s never felt love, just pain. He’s never had a home, but he thinks about that night in the pub, the closest he ever came to feeling like he could make one with these people. 

He’s still thinking about that night when he walks out into nothing and falls. 

Months later, Jon wakes up. Basira’s there, and they talk about Tim. Basira’s mouth tightens when she tells him they’ve still not found Daisy’s body. 

“Just you and me, then,” Jon says, picking at his sheets. “And Melanie and Martin, I guess.” He looks up, his brow crinkled. “Honestly, I’m surprised Martin isn’t here—”

The look on Basira’s face stops him short. 

**A Warning**

Jon breathes in deep, turns, and looks at the Institute for what he hopes is the last time. He has what he needs in hand; Martin’s at his place packing. They’re going to meet up; they’re going to run. They can make this work. It was a wild, desperate thought when it first spilled from Jon’s lips like blood from a wound, but the more he sat with it, the more his body surged with the adrenaline. It’s like stealing; he’s stealing Martin from Peter; he’s stealing all the work they’ve put into Jon to make him a monster. They’re running like thieves in the night. 

“Fiji,” Martin had said. “Let’s go to Fiji.” 

Jon wrinkled his nose at the thought of _sand everywhere_ and _so much sun,_ and Martin had laughed. “Kidding. The States, then. No one will think to find us in character at Disney World.” 

Jon never runs, in a literal sense, but he’s running now, because his stupid, stupid (friend? partner?) is waiting for him (and Jon got them tickets to Phnom Penh as Martin is not to be trusted with travel plans). 

He barrels up the stairwell to Martin’s flat, down the dim hallway to where the brown door is already cracked open. 

“Back!” Jon calls once he’s inside and can catch his breath. “I’m ready!”

There’s no answer. 

Jon shrugs off his coat and toes off his loafers out of habit, placing them both on the short bench by the front door. “Martin?” he asks. “Are you here?”

Nothing in the small kitchen. There’s a box on the counter, half-filled with items Martin might be meaning to give away or store. 

Jon begins to think he’s popped out for a quick trip to the market for something, but then he Knows, suddenly, that he hasn’t. 

Jon turns from the kitchen. The bedroom door is open, and he walks mechanically towards it because he has to see it for himself. He always has to see, after all; he’s always been so damned curious. 

There’s a streak of red just inside the door, just a streak at first, but his gaze wanders past that streak to a longer, thicker one, gradually morphing into a dark red puddle—almost black against the dark wooden floor. The bedroom is not large; Martin lives modestly, and puts most of his earnings into paying for his mother’s care facility, and why is Jon thinking about this now? (Because he doesn’t want to look; he always wants to look.) 

Martin is slumped against the wall opposite the door; the white paint is coated in his blood. His face is unrecognizable; deep gouges mar his cheeks, his neck. His favorite jumper is sticky with clumps of red flesh and meat, torn open at the chest. 

There is a low, continuous sound, a whine, and Jon realizes it’s coming from him. He backs up a step, like he could take this all back if he started over. His mind is a race of half-phrases— _oh god, oh god, what the fuck, who the fuck, how, oh god, oh fuck, no no no no no no no no._

His breath is hitching; he feels himself beginning to shiver. He’s probably going into shock, and he knows that will help nothing, so he begins to catalog things, tell himself the facts. Martin’s dead. Martin is very dead. It looks like the Slaughter, or just a really fucking sick deranged freak and he can _not_ do this.

Then he sees the notebook paper by Martin’s half-clenched hand. It’s all Jon can do to make himself go over, swallow down the bile that rises in his throat, and unfold the crumpled paper with badly trembling hands. The blood looks so bright and red contrasted against the white backdrop, the pale blue lines, and the blocky black letters.

It reads: THE ARCHIVIST WORKS ALONE. 

**A Respite**

Martin is ill, and it’s not getting better. It starts with a cough. 

“Dust,” he claims, and they both look around at the endless sand dunes of a vast apocalyptic hellscape and laugh a little. 

Then he stumbles. Jon is much smaller than Martin, and when he reaches out to keep him from falling, Martin nearly brings them both down. “Maybe… a bit out of shape for all this walking,” he says with a sheepish chuckle. Jon doesn’t laugh with him this time. He says nothing at all. 

One night (or day, it’s all the same now), as Jon stokes a fire on the brink of another realm—shadowed by looping vines and massive trees far too old for the forests here—he hears Martin behind a stump vomiting up his dinner. 

“You’re warm,” Jon says, kneeling beside him. It’s an understatement. Jon knows the exact temperature of every space in Martin’s body without placing a hand on him, and he’s deeply concerned. How has he not noticed? So focused on their surroundings trying to harm them, Jon’s forgotten bodies are perfectly capable of hurting themselves. He supposes he doesn’t have to worry about that as much anymore, not like Martin. 

Martin sleeps for a long while, and Jon muses on how long to let him. His breath is coming in short pants, and Jon finds a pond of what he hopes is water, boils it, and forces him to drink. There is nothing to bring down his fever out here, though. Jon can move through the realms, see if he can find friends, find help, but he doesn’t think Martin will be able to make that journey and he doesn’t know how to keep him safe until he returns.

Martin’s clenching his bedroll and Jon’s in both hands, flushed face turned towards the side, eyes squeezed shut against the fire like it’s too bright. He’s shaking miserably, and when Jon kneels next to him, he scoots his head off his thin, damp pillow and onto Jon’s lap. 

Jon’s not supposed to Know things about Martin, but it’s too late for that. Martin won’t get better, not without intervention. He needs to go to the tunnels, to a place the entities can’t touch, but he’s not going anywhere like this. The next best thing is, perhaps, to bring the tunnels to him. He doesn’t exactly know how that will work, but he can go try. 

He strokes a hand down Martin’s fiery red cheeks and rests it on Martin’s wrinkled shirt, says, “I don’t exactly trust her, but I think I can bully Helen into protecting you while I get you… something to help.” 

Martin moans and shakes his head. “Where are you going?” he slurs. His voice is raspy and he follows it up with a coughing fit. Jon waits. 

“To get you help,” Jon repeats. He leans back and absently combs his fingers through Martin’s wet hair. “To make you better.” 

Martin clasps Jon’s hand where it lays on his chest. “No,” he says. “There isn’t enough time. Stay with me.” 

“That’s ridiculous,” Jon answers, somewhat petulantly, fingers stopped in Martin’s hair. “I can’t just stay here and watch you… watch you… _die_ —” Jon chokes on the word like it’s clogged in his throat— “and not _do anything_.”

“You can’t?” Martin asks with a small smile. He opens feverishly blue eyes and rests them on Jon. “But that’s what you do, right? You Watch, and you Know. And you Know what’s going to happen to me, even if you won't admit it.” He pats Jon’s hand. “It’s not much to ask for, is it? I never ask for much.” 

Jon lets out an angry breath between his teeth because it’s true; Jon asks for _everything_ , and Martin gives until he breaks, and still Jon will ask for more. And it’s just like Martin to make his one request such a huge and insurmountable mountain wrapped up like it’s just an inconsequential thing. _Stay here with me while I die._

Jon exhales, slumps back, and rearranges his legs to be more comfortable underneath Martin’s head. “Fine,” he says, and Martin’s hand squeezes his. “Fine, I’ll stay here.” He’s not done being angry, but he can already feel the slow, creeping fear of what he’s just acquiesced to bleeding through his mind. 

Martin relaxes, closes his eyes, and smiles as Jon continues to rake fingers through his hair with one hand while clutching Martin's with his other. A few hours later, Martin closes his eyes and never opens them again. Half a day after that, he breathes out and doesn’t breathe back in. He’s still smiling. 

And this is it? Jon thinks. You release your breath; you sink into yourself; you are no more. All that was and is Martin will no longer be. How absurd, he thinks. How utterly meaningless. What is the point in anything at all if it ends like this?

Perhaps it's best. The world around them is hell, and Martin's been through enough for Jon's sake. Jon will go it alone from here, is all. He always has in the past. He can do it again. 

Still, he clutches Martin’s hand. He doesn’t know how to stop. 

**A Survivor**

They’re staring into the Buried. Martin’s never seen anything like it; the walls are tight and thick on each side, spiraling down and down into caverns deep beneath the Earth that no one will ever come out of. And the Governor is waiting below, keys ready to lock Jon away. 

And Jon is so close to the edge. 

All at once, Martin lunges forward and grips Jon’s shirt in both hands, hauling him back from the brink. 

“You said you wouldn’t stop me,” Jon says softly, his hands coming up to cover Martin’s.

“I know,” he says, his voice clenched, his breath coming in pants. He’s ducked his head so Jon can’t see his face, but there are tears leaking unchecked onto their joined hands. 

Jon’s voice is so gentle. “I started this. I have to make it right, Martin.” He bends his head, trying to get a glimpse at the taller man’s face. “We can end this for good.” 

Martin sobs once and shakes his head. “We don’t know,” is all he can manage.

Jon chokes on a laugh. His voice begins to waver a bit when he speaks. “There’s no other way to kill me. I’ve… tried them all.”

They don’t know if this will kill him either, or just neutralize him. The best they can hope is that burying the Eye will prevent it from keeping Jon alive there in the Buried, but that’s assuming there’s enough human left in Jon to die at all. It’s a win either way for the world, but for Jon, it’s a horrifying gamble for a nightmare fate. 

“Martin.”

Martin sobs again, somehow manages to twist Jon’s shirt even tighter, shoves his face further into Jon’s chest. “I know,” he says again, and now he’s crying hard, shoulders shaking, teeth clenched, because he can’t say all the other things he wants to say and there isn’t much time left. 

Martin’s broken now, and Jon knows he’s won and there’s no value in arguing. Instead, he reaches up and hooks his chin over Martin’s shoulder and grabs the back of Martin’s head, tangles his fingers in the hair there. “All right, Martin. It’s all right. You’re going to be okay. Hush now.” 

But Jon’s voice is the most human Martin’s heard it in months, trembling a little, though Jon’s trying his best to hide it. He’s scared, Martin realizes, he’s _so scared_. And he’s lingering, though Martin sees past Jon towards the hole in the earth—so much like a grave—a dark figure and a set of keys prepared to turn away. The Governor wants the Archivist, but not enough to fight a battle he’ll lose. Martin coughs something between a laugh and a sob. Ironic that it’s the remnants of Jon’s humanity which might end up dooming the world this time.

Martin’s not going to be all right—he’s going to spend every day of the rest of his life waking up in cold sweats, feeling the press of dirt walls all around him—but this is not about Martin. He pulls back, and Jon gives him a shaky smile. Martin kisses him right on it, hard.

“I love you, Jonathan Sims,” he whispers fiercely. Then he pushes him into the earth. The look of surprise and dawning terror is the last expression Martin sees on Jon’s face before he is consumed.

“But not enough to doom the world.” 

And all that’s left in front of him is a mound of dirt. The world is already changing all around him, turning away the tides of the apocalypse. The Buried has retreated with its prize; the monsters are gone, and Martin is alive. And alone.


End file.
